‘What about Ingrid?’

‘She was wearing it. BBC were quite strict about people in vision wearing all the appropriate kit. And in Ingrid’s case, well, I think it was part of her image actually, the way the Great British viewing public liked to see her. In her body armour, with the strap of her leather satchel across the front. That was what they paid their licence fee for, and she played up to their expectations.’

‘Yes. I remember her doing news reports like that. It was quite a potent image. She looked totally fearless.’

‘Oh yes. Of course, she wasn’t. Nobody was. We were all shit-scared most of the time. But you got better at hiding the fear. Every day you survived, you felt, well, maybe I can cope with another day. The drink helped too.’

‘And that famous leather satchel of Ingrid’s?’ I asked. ‘What did she keep in it?’

‘Everything.’ The cameraman shrugged. ‘Nowadays, of course, it’d all be electronic stuff – mobile phone, satellite phone, laptop, tablet, whatever. You forget how primitive the technology was back then. No mobile phones in the 1980s, no laptops. Very primitive metal detectors. Satellite communications, yes, but not very portable. Telex – God, telex was used a lot. Ingrid favoured old-fashioned spiral-bound notebooks. That was the archetypal image of the Press – intrepid reporter scribbling away in a notebook. Like Tintin and all the others.’

‘So … going back to the car bomb … I’m sorry if that’s painful …’

‘It’s OK. I can cope.’

‘When the thing went off, you’re saying that Ingrid was partly protected by the body armour?’

‘Yes. Except for her face, of course.’

I had a vivid image of the deep dent I had seen in her forehead. It must have bled a lot when it happened.

Phil went on, ‘Like I said, the reporters were encouraged to wear body armour if they were going to be in vision. Made them look as if they were taking responsible precautions … though what constituted responsible precautions in a war zone was a matter of considerable debate.’

‘Ingrid was going to be in vision at that moment? Were you actually filming her when the bomb went off?’

‘We were setting up to film. Ingrid was about to do a piece to camera.’

‘What about?’

‘About one of the hostages who was being held out there. I don’t know if you remember, but there was a journalist called—’

‘Paul McClennan,’ I interrupted, beginning to see where all this might be leading.

‘Yes. Ingrid was very excited. She’d somehow managed to make contact with his captors. She had some deal going on with them.’

‘Deal?’

‘I don’t know exactly what it was. Maybe get an interview with one of the men holding him? Maybe actually get an interview with Paul McClennan himself. That would have been television gold-dust. And the militias were getting increasingly canny about media manipulation. You remember all those videos they circulated? Hostages with copies of newspapers with dates on them? Hostages spelling out their abductors’ demands. It was only a short step from that to one of the hostages actually being interviewed. And if there was any reporter out there capable of getting that kind of coup, Ingrid was the one. As I say, she was really excited about something that day. Kept telling me that all the details, passwords, maps and what-have-you, were in the leather satchel.’